The Rajya Vidyut Upbhokta Parishad has called upon Lucknow Electricity Supply Administration to end the self-billing system and ensure proper meter reading by its staff, reverting to the system followed earlier.

The Parishad criticised LESA for wrongly blaming power consumers for
giving false meter readings and paying lesser amounts. Parishad president Avadhesh Varma said, “LESA authorities have been falsely implicating consumers in cases of wrong billing. As most power consumers are not trained like LESA staff, they can err in noting down the reading. They cannot be blamed for faults of LESA, which takes exception to a variation of a single unit in the reading.”

Varma further said, “Around 30 lakh power consumers cannot be expected to pay their dues on time every month if they don’t get any bills from LESA. And if the consumers are giving money to the authorities without getting bills, they must be given some special rebate. Instead, they are harassed by LESA staff for giving ‘false’ reading.”